Backbencher insists on abstention, calls on EU to 'monitor' Gonzi's handling of situation

Addressing the MZPN annual general meeting on Wednesday evening, Gonzi revealed he had asked the Opposition to agree to a joint parliamentary committee o be set up with the scope of overseeing public transport, and also to postpone Friday's no-confidence motion against transport minister Austin Gatt.

Gonzi told the AGM he was insisting that he wanted Labour's motion to be amended into a “positive” one, and not just call for a minister’s resignation.

He announced the PN will be summoning its executive once more on Thursday evening, to discuss the amendments, but warned that should no agreement be reached, he was expecting “all government MP’s to vote against the Opposition’s motion.”

In a reaction to MaltaToday on Wednesday evening, Nationalist backbencher Franco Debono - who has threatened to abstain on the Labour motion - said he had decided to stand his ground and abstain from the vote.

He also said he would neither pen nor propose an amendment to counter the Opposition’s call for Gatt’s resignation, as had been mentioned by Gonzi at the PN's executive committee meeting last Monday.

“It is inconceivable to accept a situation where the Prime Minister decides to turn a clear issue of individual responsibility, into a matter of collective responsibility,” Debono said.

In his comments, Debono said the European Commission should “monitor” the way the Prime Minister “is handling such situations, where reforms fail at a heavy cost for the taxpayer.”

He also said the Prime Minister had not understood that this was a "clear issue of individual responsibility that has not been shouldered by anybody, as is normal democratic practice in other European Union member states.”

Last Tuesday, the Prime Minister revealed that he had refused Austin Gatt’s offer for resignation on October 3 during a Cabinet meeting.

Gonzi also told MaltaToday that public transport reform was part of the PN's electoral programme, and that the routes introduced in July were approved by Cabinet and not only by Gatt. "Minister Gatt has assumed political responsibility, and so does Cabinet, and I have informed the party executive last week that Gatt had offered his resignation during a Cabinet session, before MP Franco Debono had declared his position, and that I had refused the offer."

Gonzi has proposed that an amendment is made to the Labour motion that will also be characterised by an apology for the way the public transport reform was handled.

Debono’s position tonight changes the situation on the government benches, leaving Gonzi without a parliamentary majority that will require the Speaker’s casting vote to save Austin Gatt.